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What is the official bHVR word on the "3gen strategy"?
I have just made a team of Good Loopers fail and cry by Patrolling Gens consistently and as Skull Merchant I used Drones to "Guard" over the gens. It worked quite well, even tho they were able to hit many Dead Hards. I was still able to pick them apart slowly as they ran in and tried to disable my drones again and again.
But you make me wonder bHVR, what were they supposed to do vs that? What are SoloQ supposed to do?
Are you supposed to forget about the Drone, eat up the lockdown and rush the gen as fast as possible putting you at great risk?
I hope we can get some clear words on this, if there is a solution I think the community deserves to get a little video clip on twitter on it. Because looking over the forum, people seem confused. I think the Community deserves you pull back the curtain here.
Best Answer
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Maybe we get a solution in the next chapters. Some perk that helps with 3 gens. Or the devs want to incentivise survivors to use Potential Energy and Deja Vu.
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It goes beyond solo players. Not even a good SWF can counter it if the killer knows what they're doing and has the right build. I've said this 30 times but not even Otz and his SWF of 10k hour players were able to counter a competent lockdown skull merchant. I think it's safe to say something is unfair if a team of 10k hour players are unable to counter it and the game drags out for 40+ minutes. It's a real problem and needs to be addressed quickly. Not three months from now. Find some other way to buff her and nuke her three gen potential. Otherwise you're just going to have people dcing in every single skull merchant game.
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Yeah I'd like a word from them. This ain't a really good meta we're in and is a big reason why so many people think the game feels stale.
Best meta this game can go in is a chase oriented meta, since chases are basically the only time both sides interact with each other.
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I can deal with 3 gen situations, it's just the length of time that these games get dragged out for that makes it frustrating. It used to be a mistake survivors would make that would benefit killers with extra hooks and a kill or two. But you could still slowly make progress back then. Now it's become more like a stalemate.
I can't speak for the devs but I imagine they'd be okay with the 3 gen situation as a strategy, as it is of course a strategy, whichever way we wanna look at it. It's just this strategy is going to end up more and more with survivors just handing themselves up to killers because it's been 45 min and they have real life to get back to. And I'm seeing this more and more. People get home from work and want a few games and some decent bp, not one long a** game that isn't worth it bp wise. Maybe for every 5 min your game goes past 25 min or something, you get extra bp and xp? I dunno. But people aren't sticking around for these games anymore.
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I don't think anybody enjoys 45 minute games
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That's a take that really resonates with me. I had no issues with 3-gens when they were a result of survivor mistakes, and a killer's lategame plan to recover a match if the survivors weren't smart about how they spread out. If a killer hard camped 3 gens from the start of the game, then all 4 survivors would still be alive and they'd usually fail at protecting the 3-gen unless there were massive survivor mistakes.
But I have an issue with 3-gens reinforced by killer powers that even 4 survivors will struggle to break, where killers can obsessively defend them from the start of the game and lose nothing for it, because at that point? It's an issue of game design encouraging incredibly unfun, time-waster gameplay. It's the issue of Forever Legion and Forever Freddy all over again - stalemate games are profoundly unenjoyable. And the latest two killers we've got not only incentivize this really crappy gameplay, but have virtually nothing else going for them, power-wise. So it's not just a matter of 'this gets kills', it's a matter of '...and nothing else does.'
I think this also speaks to problems with the current meta - Pop, Pain Res, and Ruin were objectively healthier gen regression perks than CoB/Overcharge due to how they could be countered or what they required from the killer in order to do anything. Before anyone quotes me, I'm not saying CoB/Overcharge needs to be nerfed - rather, unnerfing Ruin and Pop would be an excellent start. CoB + Overcharge synergizes insanely well with Knight and Skull Merchant because their powers prevent survivors from returning to the gen immediately, which lets the supercharged regression eat the gen's progress without much counterplay, but that's not an inherent problem with the perks - it's a problem with those killers. They need to lose some camp power in exchange for better chase power.
I think, instead of offering bonus BP/XP, the game would better benefit from changes to speed the match up if it goes too long - like repair times get shorter, or the killer moves faster. But I'm not sure how to implement that in a way that doesn't punish or benefit players incorrectly - ideally you don't want to reward the side that's forcing the stall, but I can't imagine how the game can recognize this given how many factors are involved. Like, if no gen's been done in 10 minutes, is that because the killer is obsessively 3-genning, or is it because the survivors are all trolling the killer with unhookable builds and bodyblocks? Might not be doable, but I think we all want the game to be over with more than we want some compensation points for it.
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The problem is I have no qualms with 3 gen defense at all. Every tactic that's not against the rules is fair play. Everything. My problem that I have is when people smack talk when relying on these strategies with success or failure not mattering. I also have a problem when my teammates cannot comprehend with the idea of not 3 genning if the killer wasn't defending it at the start
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I think generators, as a main objective, are fundamentally flawed and are going to need a rework at some point. The last 3 gens are the only gens that matter if you can defend them. And 90 seconds to repair a gen is too short for the Killer to hold onto them in the early game, but too long for the Survivors to break a 3-gen in the late game.
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its not a problem with the skull merchant specifically, its a problem with the fundamental game design as a whole. The problem is, the killer is going to lose the first 2-3 gens during the first chase. So what does that leave them with? This is why the 3-gen strat is so prevalent, because the early game just goes too fast. So what ends up happening is this long drawn out fight over these close 3 gen setups.
I think if they were to add some method/game mechanic in place to make dealing with a 3 gen easier, while also adding some mechanic to slow down the early game (early trial warmup anyone?) and basically even out the progress so that in say, an average game where all 4 survivors escape, you'll see a general progression where, a single gen gets done every 2 minutes or so, leading to ~11-13 minute matches, would be much better than what we have now where, you lose the first 3 gens in the first 2-3 minutes and then you lose the next one at around 5-6 minutes. Then you defend a 3 gen for the next 10-20 minutes (if you are stalling/3genning specifically)
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This. Had a SM pick dead dawg (I was solo). They did not engage in chases at all. Just put drones above the free 3 gen in the back added with cob overcharge etc, and there was nothing we could do. Even though we were solos, everyone stopped doing their gens once they realized what was happening. And the game became an unwinnable stalemate where survivors had to feed themselves to the killer just to get them interact. Painfully boring to say the least. It’s even worse on maps like meat plant with 2 floors. There really is no counter play that point other than having toolboxes and bnps to quickly bust through the last few gens.
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Most likely:
Buff her chase power in exchange for weakening her 3 gen power.
Nerfs to Call of Brine and Overcharge.
Although in all honesty, I must ask how Skull Merchant’s 3 gen power compares to other killers. Is she the strongest killer when it comes to locking down an area, or is the community way overblowing it since she’s new?
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Survivor should realize that there is more than second chance perks.
Potential Energy, Toolboxes, Hyperfocus.
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Can't nerf call of brine and overcharge just because theres a killer that camps gens now. This would hurt other killers that use those perks to slow the game down which is sometimes very needed.
SM is worse than knight in my opinion. Her drones wont leave the gens unless you disable them. So she can just stay at the area of the 3 gen get free info of people who try to enter her realm and chase them away + kick gens.
Most SM players ive met wont chase outside her set 3 gens. They sit there like bubba with hooks. This killer is just badly designed but luckily i only tend to see 1 here and there so dealing with 1 frustrating match is ok.
I do see that this killer will start causing people to quit the match early and Dcs arent something we needed more into this game.
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3-genning is so boring man. There's little skill involved and it extends matches for far too long. A DBD match should never take more than like 20ish mins. Idk how Killers find it fun. Like yeah you got a 4k but at what cost?
And the gen spawns are just getting worse. You might as well DC on RCPD vs. a 3-gen. Even a coordinated team can't break that BS. And now we get another 3-gen Killer? I'm so fed up with DBD rn. This game is just monotonous to play lately.
Post edited by Ghoste on4 -
It's pretty strong, especially on multistory maps. I've had 3 matches against SM on Gideon and they were just ......nightmare slogs and, so far, worse than some of the Knight matches I've had. The first game was *almost* salvageable but only because there were a few bad drone placements that allowed us to circle around the perimeter and work on some of the gens that SM was trying to guard. Two of us had SB and were able to harass those two gens but not get downed or at least was able to draw her bit away before we went down. I also had WGLF and since this player liked to slug too, that came in handy. But despite some fairly good teamwork for a full solo Q team, we all died before the last gen popped and more than 20 minutes had gone by.
Game 2 on Gideon was just a flippin' nightmare. While we were able to avoid hooks in the beginning, we couldn't get any serious progress on the 3 (realistically more like a 4 gen with the config we had) gen. SM wasn't getting downs, but the two toolboxes (one green, one yellow, brown add ons) that were brought and the one I found (sadly just a brown) didn't help despite two of them getting dumped onto one gen at the same time. 2 people gave up at the 25 minute mark, and I can't blame them. The third person suicided on hook and I was about to track down the killer for the 4th kill when the hatch spawned in front me. Normally when the hatch spawns in front of me, I feel a small elation at RNG smiling on me. This time? It felt like the game was either trolling me or took pity.
I won't go into as much detail on Game 3 except to say that it was the worst one of all and when I saw that it was Gideon again with another SM, I seriously considered just DC'ing for the first time since I started playing this game.
Other games against SM on different maps (for me at least) were overall more even, but it's pretty evident that her 3-gen game is hella strong and I'd hate to face her on Midwich or Dead Dawg and that one map (can't remember the name) that can have one side that's incredibly gen heavy.
I run toolboxes only when I have challenges/dailies that need them and rarely run gen speed perks, but if I start seeing lots of SMs, I will start changing builds up accordingly.
That isn't to say that I think she's unbeatable when she pitches a tent between three gens. I wouldn't be surprised that right builds paired with toolboxes and appropriate add-ons in the hands of a decently competent team could break the 3 (or more) gen. But I don't want 20+ minute games every time I see this killer either. I don't play SWF except for a friend who occasionally wants to play too, so the only other option will be to bring 'gen slamming' builds.
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Drop chase, kick the gen, put up a drone, leave again, Drop chase, kick the gen, put up a drone, leave again, Drop chase, kick the gen, put up a drone, leave again, Drop chase, kick the gen, put up a drone, leave again
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I think BHVR has said in past posts that 3 genning is fine, but the killer never trying to leave the area can be seen as holding the game hostage. I don't think there is a way they could actually enforce that, but I think they've posted something along those lines in regards to videos of knights locking down a 3 gen for an hour.
The problem with this is that the game is basically decided by loadout.
Hit a killer who runs to a 3 gen immediately? Oh, you have potential energy and recognize it, not a problem. Oh, you didn't bring those things because you had no way of knowing that was what you were going to hit? So, you want to just sacrifice now or play for 40 minutes?
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So I actually came to the forums after playing Survivor all day today...
The MAJORITY of my games went facing up against Skull Merchant and I find her to simply be too Oppressive to deal with...
I'm actually a Killer main, but I do play both, and while I NEVER like to make comments about Killers feeling too strong right after their release because they get hit SO hard with the nerf hammer that they become completely unplayable afterwards... historically speaking..
But after facing Skull Merchant over and over again today, each match is worse than the last... there's just too much she's able to do all at once.
She can literally be in chase while ALSO holding down multiple gens with her Drones... the Drones are a bit of a lose / lose situation because either 1 you get Exposed by them and have your location given away, or you disable them but you still have your location revealed for quite a while... and because the Merchant is ALSO Undetectable while she is inside her drone range, I've had many of them use that as a way to get REALLY close to me while they can use their Radar to pin me down and then just pop up out of no where...
So yeah idk , but I'm not surprised to see that others are complaining as well, each and every time I face her its the same thing over and over again, basically gens are being guarded so well its really difficult / or impossible to complete them, and the entire time she's still moving around the map getting hooks lol
Idk, I have to try playing as her to see what its like actually on the other side, but from the Survivor side it's very challenging, but not really in the "fun" way, kind of the annoying way lol.. I like the whole interacting with the drones and pressing the buttons, I think that's a new fun creative addition, there are things I enjoy about facing her, but it gets ruined when it just starts to feel "unfair" every single match.
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I hope the next mid chapter will try and address some of this issues, they already hyped the next mid chapter for big changes.
So i hope this issues get addressed.
Having the Knight, skull Merchant and the COB/Eruption/Overcharge meta all so close almost seems like the created perfect storm.
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While I think three-gen is a legit strategy, it shouldn't be as strong as it is. Killers need to be pressured to go for downs. Some sort of bloodlust, but for generators, would be a good solution IMO. i'm not sure exactly how it'd work (especially with stealth killers) because you'd also have to make sure survivors couldn't just hide to get 'genlust'. But when a game goes on into a stalemate without the killer hooking anyone, survivors should repair at a faster speed until someone has been hooked. That's the general idea, anyway. It would only work when there's only one gen, remaining, though.
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You could probably avoid the hiding issue by making that 'genlust' build up by survivors doing repair actions, but no generators being completed for a long period of time, possibly in conjunction with a lack of hooks or injuries on survivors. It'd need a pretty generous timer on it to prevent it from activating in games where the killer is just getting looped to death, though.
Personally I would rather just see Knight and Skull Merchant get some limits to their ability to camp gens and buffs elsewhere, though. 3-genning wasn't an issue before we got killers that could lock gens down so effectively that even four living survivors will get stalemated.
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So punish the killer because the survivors refuse to try and do their objective? Sounds fair. How about for every percent of gen speed boost the killer also gets that as haste.
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If the killer has the right perks and actually commits to just patrolling the 3-gen then there's nothing you -can- do. Even a good 4 man on comms can't do anything against a killer like Knight, Doctor or Skull Merchant with a gen-kick build who doesn't let themselves get lured away from their 3-gen.
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Okay, pretending a 3-genning Skull Merchant is just 'survivors refusing to try and do their objective' is patently ridiculous. They said right in their post that there'd need to be strictures in there to prevent survivors from hiding and getting benefits from it.
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I mean if they're getting looped to death, the gens are getting done anyway or the survivors aren't doing anything. But that is why I think it should only work if there's only one generator left. Just something to speed the game along. It wouldn't have to be drastic. Just something to put pressure on the killer to get hooks. I think if the killer is still hooking people, that gen lust shouldn't kick in. I think Doctor is just as problematic as Skull Merchant and Knight.
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To piggyback off of this: this is exactly why VHS failed. Something can be valid on paper, theoretically counterable, etc. But it has to actually be FUN. You can't have a multiplayer game where every other match has the possibility of being a war of attrition. A trail should rarely be pushing past the 15 minute mark. This is going to bleed player count if they don't address it with some urgency, and it can't be some half-baked bandaid perk.
I'm not a whiny survivor main. I probably have more 4ks on my account as killer than most players have total games played. I would happily play against Nurse, Blight, Wesker, etc, every game. I'm just saying that the 3 gen forever strat completely sucks the life out of the game, and recent killers exacerbate the problem.
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The solution will come in the next chapter!
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On a more serious note. Making her THE 3 gen killer per se, was obviously a design choice. Now in regard of why...
Maybe their solution to tunneling complaints. Since no one is complaining about tunneling right now. So yeah, great success!
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Do you think its a test? bHVR is trying to see if Survivors can adapt to these two new types of killers.
Knight and Skull merchant.
I hope someone from bHVR comes by and gives an answer on what they are thinking about it.
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you asked to nerf eruption. of course killer is going rebel. The skull merchant is like D-tier terrible chase killer. what exactly are you expecting killers to do with such a worthless ability? I have 0 anti-loop base-kit and have unreliable expose mechanic that does not help me hit survivors and ton of pointless information that I can do nothing with. If your going to make my chasing experience miserable, then why do you not expect the killer to make your generator objective experience miserable?
you need to make the killer chasing experience more enjoyable and perhaps the killer might make your generator experience more enjoyable. this is just common sense. Instead we just get a bunch of survivor complaining that X killer power is OP and X killer perk needs nerfing.
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I called for a full rework of Skull Merchant the second she made it to PTB. Same for Knight. The design flaws were immediately obvious to experienced players, which the devs should utilize more in the design process. This can't keep happening with killer releases. It's not a personal attack on the role of killer if people pointed out that Eruption needed a rework. The game shouldn't be miserable for anyone, period. Killers shouldn't be awful in chase and incredible at stall. That's a recipe for bad gameplay.
I don't think anyone who cares about the game's health is encouraged by their design philosophy the last 2 years. Twins, Sadako, Knight, Skull Merchant, and others are miserable for one side or the other for difference reasons.
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The game shouldn't be miserable for anyone, period. Killers shouldn't be awful in chase and incredible at stall. That's a recipe for bad gameplay.
sure.. but with how fast coordinate survivor groups(i.e SWF) can finish generators. I need to down unrealistically quick to have realistic winning chances when it comes to winning through hook rushing. In fact, When I am hook rushing, the survivor complains that I am tunneling. Skull merchant is anything but unrealistic quick. She is methodical and slow. I have no zero idea how you expect to go around chasing people with the pallet design in this game. Pallet design in the game is too safe for any m1 killer to do anything less then pallet break simulator for +10 minutes straight. All i can do is play pallet break simulator and run generator stall perks to not lose.
Just look at tru3's skull merchant games. They're good representation of how m1 killer gameplay works. you can just watch this gameplay for first 10 minutes. He has 1 hook in 10 minutes. that is how bad skull merchant chase is. Its pure m1 killer. You have to break all this safe pallets and god pallet design before you can down a survivor. This is not just skull merchant problem but its problem with like 75% of the killer cast. Just like tru3 says, the killer control in the chase varies from 0 control, weak control to full control. Skull merchant and bunch of other killer have little to no control, so the gameplay devolves into 3 gen 20+ minute gameplay for a lot of the killers.
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"You don't understand! I HAVE to drag matches out for 45 minutes by humping gens and making people hack 5,000 drones (and then probably still lose, if the survivors didn't give up out of boredom). I don't have a choice, she has no chase power!"
Here's an idea: play a different killer. One that has a decent chase power.
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There has been a marked increase in the amount of gens that spawn ridiculously close together on nearly every map since the Knight released. The only one theyve done anything about is RPD because, at one point, they moved the gen on the main hall landing to at the bottom of the stairs and left the one that has always been downstairs in-situ making any escape near impossible for weeks and have now reverted it. But they're clearly pushing for this style of play.
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